At the closing of trading last week, the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) reported a second straight weekly loss as losses in Red Star Express and Betaglas dragged the index down by 0.44 percent.
Market capitalization and the All-Share index both declined by 0.44 percent to end the week at 49,475.42 points and N26.686 trillion, respectively.
The NGX ASeM and NGX Growth indices concluded flat, while all other indices finished lower. In response to the state of the market, experts at Cordros Capital said:
“We expect alpha-seeking investors to rotate their portfolios towards cyclical stocks that delivered decent earnings during the Q2-22 earnings season amid the yield uptick in the FI market.”
“However, we think the absence of a near-term catalyst will likely skew overall market sentiments to the negative side, particularly as the political space gets heated.
“Notwithstanding, we reiterate the need for positioning in only fundamentally sound stocks as the unimpressive macro environment remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings.”
Vetiva Dealing and Brokerage analysts added: “The average weekly volume of 141 million units, a 25% decrease from last week’s 189 million units, depicted this week’s disappointing sessions.
“Given the absence of any major positive catalyst in the market coupled with the current inflationary pressure, we expect a slow start to the week.”
According to a summary of last week’s trading, there were 17,444 transactions on the exchange’s floor involving 719.4 million shares for N8.004 billion.
However, the number of shares moved was less than the previous week’s total of 949.8 million units, valued at N9.3 billion, which were transacted in 18,525 transactions.
With 411.4 million shares worth N3.9 billion moved in 9,471 deals, or 57.19% of the total stock turnover volume, the financial services industry led the activity chart (measured by volume). The ICT Industry came in second with 1,573 deals totaling 177.8 million shares for N955.8 million.
With a turnover of 36.577 million shares worth N2.332 billion in 2,425 deals, the conglomerate industry came in third.
Courteville Business Solutions Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, and Access Holdings Plc were the three most actively traded stocks, with 278.3 million shares worth N1.98 billion changing hands in 3,038 transactions.
In contrast to the 3,952 units of N1 exchanged last week, 2,172 units of exchange-traded products (ETP) worth N352, 773.56 were traded this week in 18 trades. Also last week, 32 transactions totaling 7 million were made.
In addition, a total of 15,945 bonds worth N16.238 million were traded last week in 15 deals as opposed to 219,620 bonds worth N243 million that were traded in a total of 30 deals last week.
The number of stocks that increased over the week was down from 22 the week before to just 13. More stocks declined this week, 39, compared to 36 the week before.
